The first requisite for any planned effort to develop health care services in the community is to:

BTSC Staff Nurse 1 August-2025

Community Health Nursing

Easy

Appeared in: BTSC Staff Nurse 1 August-2025

Explanation

The fundamental first step in any community health initiative is to conduct a thorough assessment of the population's health status and problems.
This process, often called 'Community Diagnosis', involves collecting and analyzing data to identify the specific needs and challenges of the community.
Without this initial data-gathering phase, any subsequent actions like planning services or recruiting staff would be based on assumptions, leading to ineffective interventions and wasted resources.

Option A: Recruiting manpower and mobilizing finances are part of the implementation and resource management phase.
Option B: Sensitizing and educating the community is a health promotion activity that belongs to the implementation phase of a health program.
Option C: Designing health care services is the core of the planning phase, which logically follows the assessment.

Clinical Relevance

Nursing practice connection: Knowing Community Health Planning Cycle helps nurses interpret findings accurately and avoid errors in routine assessment, medication administration, and patient teaching.
This principle directly mirrors the nursing process (ADPIE: Assessment, Diagnosis, Planning, Implementation, Evaluation), a core framework of nursing practice, but applies it to a whole community.
A community health nurse must be skilled in assessment techniques like conducting surveys, holding focus groups, and analyzing vital statistics to effectively serve their population.
What if? If a health team starts by building a new maternal health clinic (Implementation) without an initial assessment, they might later discover that the community's most pressing issue is actually a lack of safe drinking water causing high rates of diarrheal diseases. The clinic would be underutilized, and the primary health problem would remain unaddressed.

How to Approach the Question

First, identify the keyword in the question: 'first requisite'. This clearly asks for the initial step in a sequence.
Recognize that developing health services is a systematic, planned process, much like the nursing process (ADPIE).
Recall the standard order of any planning cycle: you must first gather information (assess) before you can make a plan, act on it, or see if it worked.
Evaluate each option to determine its place in this cycle. Assessment (gathering data) must come before planning (designing services), which comes before implementation (recruiting, educating).
Select the option that represents the initial assessment phase, as it is the logical starting point.

Concept Tested & Keywords

Concept Tested: Community Health Planning Cycle
Stem keywords: first requisite, planned effort, health care services, community
Lead-in keywords: first
Clinical cues: The care setting changes urgency, monitoring level, and the expected nursing action.
Negative lead-in flag: false

Q49O7wHqqA7TfZ0uaQWF_e

E6 Parks TextBook of Preventive & Social Medicine part 2 — Subpart A (pp 1-232 of 464) p. 115-117

E6 Parks TextBook of Preventive & Social Medicine part 2 — Subpart B (pp 233-449 of 464) p. 188-190